She dared not come down as early as usual, if her own strength would have let her. The few minutes before breakfast were busy ones; and the few hours after breakfast. Faith went about with the consciousness of something on her heart to be looked at; but it had to bide its time.
Her household duties done, her preparations for Mr. Linden being already in advance, she had leisure to attend to this other thing. And alone Faith sat down and looked at it.
It was the first real steady trial her life had known. Her father"s death had come when she was too young to feel deeply any want that her mother could not fill. To be away from anything she much loved was a sorrow Faith hardly knew by experience. But a two years" separation was a very, very heavy and sharp pain to think of; and Faith had an inward a.s.surance that the reality would be heavier and sharper than her thoughts beforehand could make it. Perhaps it was too great a pain to be struggled with; for Faith did not struggle--or not long. She sat down and looked at it,--what she had not dared to do the night before;--measured it and weighed it; and then bowed her heart and head to it in utter submission. With it came such a crowd of glad and good things, things indeed that made the trial and were bound up with it,--that Faith locked the one and the other up in her heart together.
And remembering too the sunshine of joy in which she had lately lived, she humbly confessed that some check might be needed to remind her and make her know that earth has not the best sunshine, and that any gain would be loss that turned her eyes away from that best, or lessened her sense of its brightness.
So there came no shadow over her at all, either that day or afterwards.
The clear light of her face was not clouded, and her voice rung to the same tune. There was no shadow, nor shade of a shadow. There _was_ a little subdued air; a little additional gravity, a trifle more of tenderness in her looks and ways, which told of the simpleness of heart with which she had quietly taken what G.o.d gave and was content with it.
To Mr. Linden the trial was not new, and to sorrow of various kinds he was wonted; but it was new to him to see her tried, and to that he found it hard to accustom himself. Yet he carried out his words,--Faith could feel a sort of atmosphere of bright strength about her all the time. How tenderly she was watched and watched over she could partly see, but pain or anxiety Mr. Linden kept to himself. He set himself to work to make her enjoy every minute. Yet he never shunned the subject of his going away,--he let her become used to the sound of the words, and to every little particular connected with it--they were all told her by degrees; but told with such bright words of hope and trust, that Faith took the pain as it were diluted.
Before all this had gone far--indeed not many days after the first telling of his story, Faith had come down as usual one early morning to her work. She had been down about an hour, when she heard the door open and Mr. Linden came in. He had two seconds" view of the picture before she rose up to meet him. There was no lamp yet burning in the room. A fire of good hard wood threw its light over everything, reflected back from the red curtains which fell over the windows. In the very centre of the glow, Faith sat on a low cushion, with her book on a chair. She was dressed exactly, for nicety, as if she might have been going to Judge Harrison"s to tea. And on the open pages, and on Faith"s bright hair, edging her ruffles, and warming up her brown dress, was the soft red fall of the firelight. She rose up immediately with her usual glad look, behind which lay a doubtful surmising as to his errand. It was on her lips to ask what had brought him down so early, but she was prudently silent. He came forward quick and quietly, according to his wont, not at all as if she were about anything unusual, and giving her one of those greetings which did sometimes betray the grave feeling he kept so well in hand, he brought her back to the fire.
"Little bird," he said, "what straws are you weaving in at present?"
"I don"t know. Not any--unless thoughts."
"Will it please you to state what you are doing?"
"I was reading. I had just got to the end of the story of Moses blessing Israel. I was thinking of these words--" and she took up her book and shewed him. "Happy art thou, O Israel, saved of the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency."
"Did you ever look out any of the answering pa.s.sages in other parts of the Bible?"
"Not often. I don"t know them. Once in a while I think of one. And then they are so beautiful!"
Mr. Linden took the book from her hand, turning from place to place and reading to her.
""Happy is he that hath the G.o.d of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his G.o.d: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth forever." That is what David said,--then hear how Isaiah answers--"Behold, G.o.d is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation."--And again--"Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end.""
Faith drew a little quick breath.
"Doesn"t it seem," she said, "as if words were heaped on words to prevent our being afraid?"
"I think it really is so; till we have a shield of promises as well as protection. After Abraham had gone out of his own country, "not knowing whither he went", "the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." Then David takes that up and expatiates upon it,--finding in it "both things present and things to come," dear Faith."
""For the Lord G.o.d is a sun and a shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.""
She looked down at the words, then up at him with a glad, sunshiny light in her eyes. Her comment on the whole was heartfelt, and comprehensive. "How good it was you came down this morning!"
"Would you like to have me come every morning?"
"Oh how much!--But that"s no use, Endecott."
"Why not?"
"I mustn"t get to depending upon you too much," she said with a smile.
"What had you been musing about--to make you so glad this morning?" he said looking at her.
"Nothing!--but those pa.s.sages as you read them one after the other were so beautiful, and felt so strong.--It was a great pleasure to hear you read them,"--she said dropping her voice a little in confession.
"It shall be as you like, darling, about my coming again. But dear Faith, of this other morning work you must let me say a word."
"What, Endecott?"
"You are doing too much."
"No. What makes you think so?"
Significantly Mr. Linden laid his hand on the pile of study books.
"Well?"
"Well.--For the future please to let these gentry rest in peaceful seclusion until after breakfast."
"Oh no, Endy!"
"My dear, I shall have you turning into a moonbeam. Just imagine what it would cost me to call you "pale Cynthia"!"
"You needn"t imagine it, Endecott."
"Only so far as to prevent the reality. Do you know I have been afraid of this for some time."
"Of what?"
"Afraid that you were disregarding the bounds I have laid down for study and the sun for sleep."
"I didn"t know you had laid down any bounds," she said gaily again--"and I never did mind the sun."
"Well won"t you mind me?" said he smiling. "I have a right to expect that in study matters, you know."
"Don"t try me--" said Faith, very winningly, much more than she knew.
He stood looking at her, with the sweet unbent expression which was her special right.
"Faith, don"t you mean to love to have me take care of you?"
That brought a change of look, and it was curious to see the ineffectual forces gather to veil what in spite of them wreathed in her smile and laid an additional roseleaf upon each cheek. The shy eyes retreated from view; then they were raised again as she touched his arm and said, with a demure softness, "What must I do, Endy?"
"Be content with the old study hours, my dear child. They are long enough, and many enough."
"Oh Endy!--not for me."
"For thee."
Faith looked down and looked disturbed.
"Then, Endecott, I sha"n"t be as wise as I want to be,--nor as you want to have me."
"Then you will be just as wise as I want you to be," he said with a smile. "As to the rest, pretty child,--do you mean that my wife shall deprive me of my scholar?"